Mr. Strange wrote:ゴジラ wrote:I have one subject that I would like to touch down on slightly. Beam Clashes. Since this game will most likely be released on the PC first, should the beam clash system be slightly revamped? For the Wii, clashing held the system similar to playing tennis back and forth. For STE, it was based on color patterns, certain colors overpowered others, and it was more of a guessing game. But should it be slightly revamped? Like during a clash, to win you have to spin the game-pad joystick, or analog stick for 360 and PS3 faster then your opponent. Slight revamp, or keep it in the style of past games?
Simple "mash faster" systems don't work very well - for a few reasons:
1 - The AI will ALWAYS beat a human player, if allowed. If the AI mashing speed is brought down to a level when humans can beat it, most humans will ALWAYS beat the AI. Both options are not fun.
2 - It ends up being the case that "mash faster" is never as important as "recognize the beam battle and be the first one to start mashing." This means that players who are not anticipating the mash (say, new players who don't know the system) are at a huge information deficit.
RPS-style gussing games are not perfect, but they solve these sort of problems really well. I know the feedback on the grapple system in G:U was meger, but I really liked that underlying system. For those who never bothered to study it, here it is:
1 - A monster grabs another monster.
2 - If the grab connets, both monsters begin to grapple.
3 - Each monster has a strength and a weight, which determines how difficult it will be for that monster to pick up the other monster. Initiating the grab gives you a slight strength advantage. Remember this number for later...
4 - Either monster can attempt to do one of 3 things: attack, pick-up the opponent (hoist), or toss the opponent to the side. All monsters can be tossed to the side relatively easily, but it does very little damage. Lifting the opponent is difficult unless you are strong, they are light, or you have some other advantage.
5 - When a monster tries one of those three things, the opponent can attempt to counter by performing a different action. Hoist beats toss, toss beats attack, attack beats hoist. Ties are determined by the strength value calculated in #3.
This leads to some cool interactions. If Orga grabs Mothra, then he can hoist her easily, but she cannot hoist Orga (she is too weak, compared to Orga's weight). This means Mothra can only toss or attack - while Orga can Hoist, toss, or attack. If Orga goes for the Toss, he cannot be countered. (But it does very little damage.) Mothra can try to toss, but Orga can probably counter with a Hoist, which is what Orga really wants to do. This means Mothra has to give up initiative, and try to counter Orga, instead of taking initiative and beating him straight-up.
There were some surprising grapple match-ups, and by tuning strength and weight values I got some really interesting interactions where certain monsters would grapple more in certain matchups. I also made King Ceaser the heaviest monster - boosted as he absorbed energy from attacks. This gave him a really fun edge against grapple-heavy monsters, because pretty much nobody could throw him if he played defensively.
Unfortunately, as I've already said, the feedback mechanisms were not sufficient to explain this system to players. Too bad.
Where did this idea go? It sounds like an idea for the G:U grapple system except, well, awesome. Would the "attack" be a simple pummel? I say it should be, because if you implement Hoisting, then the monster can use his two special throws (+ the standard throw, of course). I say we go with this grapple system.
is 
His only weapons are his claws, anything else is really pushing it.
